How to Win the Goldwater Scholarship

Learn How I Won the Most Prestigious Undergraduate Scholarship in STEM

Me (Anna) in one of my undergraduate research labs.

As a junior in college (2021), I received the national Goldwater Scholarship — the most prestigious undergraduate award in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics. At the time of application, I had 0 publications and only 2 minor presentations.

The purpose of this article is to go into detail about what the Scholarship is, the components of the application, my personal experience applying, and what I recommend for future applicants. When I applied, I had very few resources available from my school, so I hope this article helps someone!

Mission of the Goldwater Foundation

According to the Goldwater website (bold added for emphasis):

The Goldwater Scholarship Program, one of the oldest and most prestigious national scholarships in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics in the United States, seeks to identify and support college sophomores and juniors who show exceptional promise of becoming this Nation’s next generation of research leaders in these fields.

The characteristics the Foundation seeks in a Goldwater Scholar include:

• strong commitment to a research career in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering,

• effective display of intellectual intensity in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, and

• potential for a significant future contribution to research in their chosen field.

I don’t know anyone who has received the award that was not planning to get either a PhD or an MD/PhD. You MUST be committed to research and have specific evidence of that commitment (e.g., research experience). I personally wouldn’t waste an application if you are applying to medical school without a PhD.

Definition of a sophomore and junior:
Sophomore = an undergraduate who has a minimum of three but not more than four semesters left of full-time undergraduate study
Junior = an undergraduate who has a minimum of one but not more than two semesters left of full-time undergraduate study
*NOTE: you can apply your fourth year of undergrad if you are going to take an extra semester or two to finish your degree!

Perks of the Scholarship

1. Money = Winners receive $7,500 of funding (annually) to offset the cost of college tuition, fees, books, and housing. A sophomore who is awarded a Goldwater Scholarship can expect to receive a maximum of two years (4 semesters) of support ($15,000 total). A junior who is awarded a Goldwater Scholarship can expect to receive a maximum of one year (2 semesters) of support ($7,500 total).
2. Community = There is an awesome Slack workspace for past Goldwater Scholars winners. You can ask questions, get advice, and connect with super cool people.
3. Prestige = This is a national award, so if you get it, it can open a lot of doors for you. Most Goldwater Scholars I know have gotten into their top choice grad school.

How Winners are Selected

In order to actually apply to the scholarship, you have to receive a nomination from your undergraduate institution. For this, there is usually an internal competition at your university. Each school can nominate up to FOUR students to the national competition (up to five if one of them is a transfer student).

At my alma mater, we simply filled out and submitted the regular application by December 31st, and then our Goldwater Campus Representative picked four of us. For the nominees, he reopened our applications to revise and resubmit by the last Friday of January deadline. At other schools, you may have to submit a completely different application much earlier (e.g., October). Reach out to your Goldwater Campus Representative as early as possible to find out how the nomination process works at your school.

Once I was nominated and submitted my final application to the Foundation, I was told by my Campus Representative that I had a ~33% chance of winning. There are usually ~1200 nominees nationwide and ~400 winners. So, depending on your school, the internal competition might be the hardest part of getting the scholarship.

Application Components

You can find screenshots of the online application HERE. They update it every year for Goldwater Campus Representatives, but anyone can access the pdf.

When I applied in 2020–2021, here were the application components:

Research Essay

Three page, single-spaced essay about one prior/current research project or a research proposal.

• More details from the Goldwater website: Developing the Research Essay

Letters of Recommendation

Three letters of recommendation are required and must be approved by your Goldwater Campus Representative.

• Helpful details from the Goldwater website: Formatting Requirements & Writing Guidance (for the recommenders)

Career goals/professional aspirations

1. What is the highest degree you plan to obtain? (e.g., PhD, MD/PhD)
2. In one or two sentences, describe your career goals and professional aspirations. This statement will be used in publications if you are selected as a scholar. (200-character limit including spaces)
3. What are your career goals and professional aspirations? Indicate which area(s) of mathematics, science, or engineering you are considering pursuing in your research career and specify how your current academic program and your overall educational plans will assist you in achieving your career goals and professional aspirations. (3000-character limit including spaces)
4. Describe an activity or experience that has been important in helping shape or reinforce your desire to pursue a research career in science, mathematics, or engineering. (1500-character limit including spaces)
5. In what way did COVID-19 or other hardships affect your research career plans and did those events alter your ability to pursue those plans? If COVID-19 did not influence your plans, simply state that there was no effect. (1500-character limit including spaces)
6. (Optional question) Goldwater Scholars will be representative of the diverse economic, ethnic, and occupational backgrounds of families in the United States. Describe any social and/or economic impacts you have encountered that influenced your education — either positively or negatively — and how you have dealt with them or incorporated them in your work to reach your career goals. (1500-character limit including spaces)

Research projects and skills (you can have up to FIVE)

1. Name of Project
2. Starting month and year
3. Ongoing?
4. Ending month and year
5. Average hours/week (academic year)
6. Average hours/week (summer)
7. Name, position, and affiliation of project mentor(s)
8. Institution where research was performed
9. Description of research, including your involvement in AND contribution to the project. A separate narrative box has been provided for you to describe the research skills you acquired while working on this project. (1000-character limit including spaces)
10. Research Skills (Briefly describe any research skill(s) you developed while working on this project that will be important going forward in your research career.) (300-character limit including spaces)
11. Do you have Papers/Publications associated with this research project?
12. Do you have Presentations associated with this research project?

Activities/Accomplishments (you can have up to FIVE)

1. Name of Activity/Accomplishment
2. Organization, if applicable
3. Scope of Activity/Accomplishment (e.g., college/university, community, international)
4. Role/Involvement (brief description)
5. Leadership Position (e.g., Member, Volunteer, Mentor, Trainer)
6. Length of Involvement (e.g., more than one academic year, academic year, semester)

Recognitions (you can have up to FIVE)

1. Name of Recognition
2. Type (e.g., college/university, national)
3. Award description (brief)
4. Award Year

Current College/University Information

1. Institution type
2. Are you a transfer student?
3. Field of student/areas of specialization
4. Period through the end of which you will be reporting your GPA
5. Official cumulative unweighted GPA through the period reported above
6. How many credit hours does your school require for graduation?
7. How many credit hours will you achieve as of January 1, 2021?
8. How many credit hours do you plan to achieve for graduation?
9. Expected baccalaureate graduation month
10. Expected baccalaureate graduation year
11. According to the definition provided above, indicate whether you are a sophomore or junior.
12. Matriculation status at the institution you will be attending during the 2021–2022 academic year
13. Have you been involved in or do you plan to Study Abroad?

Coursework

1. List up to 6 current courses in your major/field
2. List up to 6 future courses in your major/field
3. List up to 6 courses outside of your major/field

My Application & Advice

My Background

I applied as a Neuroscience major (Field of Study: Life Sciences). By the time I applied, I had worked in a research lab for 18 months and a second lab for 6 months. I had worked on four different research projects, had two regional conference presentations (one poster and one talk), and had ZERO publications. I had NO major awards, but I did have a full-tuition academic scholarship and two experiential learning grants based on a written research proposal from my college. My extracurriculars included being a teaching assistant, a member of Women in Science club, a volunteer peer tutor for math/science, a volunteer ESL tutor, and a missionary abroad.

In comparison to other Scholars and nominees who had publications and had already attended national or international conferences, I didn’t think I had a chance. However, I learned if you talk about your research clearly and passionately and get stellar letters of recommendation, you can definitely win!

Letters of Recommendation

My three letter writers included my two research mentors and a chemistry professor that I took a class from and became a TA for. If you have three research mentors, get a letter from ALL three. This is a research scholarship, so those research-oriented letters carry the most weight. Ideally, these mentors will talk about your leadership in the lab and your independence on research projects.

Since I didn’t have three research mentors, my third letter writer was a professor that I worked for as a TA. I think this was my best option because he could still talk about “my intellectual intensity” and leadership qualities. Goldwater scholars are future research leaders, so if you only have 1–2 research mentors, look for professors that can discuss either your general intellect and/or your leadership potential. I truly believe that getting strong, specific, and personal letters of recommendation played a huge part in my success.

After asking your letter writers if they will write you a STRONG letter of recommendation, email all of them your research statement, your career goals/personal aspirations essay, a link to the Writing Guidance for recommenders, and a link to the Goldwater Mission Statement. I would recommend meeting with your letter writers one-on-one to remind them what you have done to contribute to their lab and some things that you’d like them to specifically mention. In my experience, this isn’t rude if you have a good relationship with them.

Research Essay

Besides getting amazing letters of rec, you will also need to write an awesome research essay. I was advised by previous Scholars that the strongest research essays focus on completed research projects (prepped for publication or published). The second-best topic would be research you are actively completing. It’s great if you can show some preliminary data! Lastly, you could write a research proposal on something you hope to complete.

In my research essay, I wrote about my first research project in college and quantified my personal contributions to the project throughout the essay.

Whenever you can, use “I” instead of “we” in your statement! Show how YOU contributed to the project as much as possible. Also, make sure your letter writer(s) can back up what you say in your research statement.

As for structure and content, I divided my research essay into six parts:

1. introduction,
2. background,
3. method/results,
4. conclusion,
5. future directions, and
6. references.

Here’s my advice on what to include:

Introduction: Write 1–2 paragraphs introducing the topic.
Background: Define important terms that a general reader in your field will need to know to understand your statement. State your research question and hypothesis. Add a sentence of why the project is important for the field.
Methods/Results: Talk about the rationale of your research design and share and interpret your results. State very clearly what YOU did. Did you plan and execute the whole project? Did you play a significant role as a team player? Although not necessary, I would recommend including 1–3 professional figures to help explain your results. It will be impossible to include everything, so focus on the parts of the project that help tell the story coherently AND the parts of the project that you contributed to the most.
Conclusion: Summarize the results and the overall implications of those results. Was your hypothesis correct? (why or why not?) Include another statement of why this research is important.
Future Directions: Talk about an idea for a future project based on your findings. Showcase that you are thinking about the research, what you have learned, and new questions that you have.
References: List abbreviated references (e.g., I wrote authors name, year of publication, and the title).

My biggest piece of advice is to write clearly and accessibly. Make it easy for the reader in your general field to understand. Prioritize explaining your research well rather than cramming in as much information as possible. Emphasize your contributions and independence.

At the end of the statement, I recommend briefly summarizing how your project fits into your career goals.

Research Projects, Activities, and Recognitions

My advice is pretty much the same for descriptions of research projects, extracurriculars, and awards: write simply and always emphasize your impact. You can put up to five research projects, five extracurriculars, and five awards. You do NOT have to fill all five spaces, but I would try to fill everything up as best you can.

If you have more than five awards, choose bigger awards first (e.g., national) and ones relevant to research. If you have one than five activities, choose ones that show the most impact/passion. If you have more than five research projects (that would be insane), picked the ones you contributed to the most.

Career Goals and Professional Aspirations Essay

I think this one is the closest thing to a “personal statement” on this entire application. I recommend starting with a short hook of how you got interested in your field of study and then clearly state your career goals/professional aspirations in the first paragraph. In my experience, scientists appreciate it when you get straight to the point.

After my hook and stating my career goals, I talked about what I had done (so far) to prepare myself for my future career. I explained why I chose my major, why I chose to work in my particular labs, and what I have learned from those labs. Throughout the essay, I always connected what I was doing in college back to my BIG career goal. Remember you need to convince the reader that you are going to accomplish what you say you will do, and that you are committed to research! At the end of the essay, I simply summarized my goals again in slightly greater detail than in the first paragraph.

Specific Activity/Experience Essay

The goal of this essay is to talk about an activity or experience that shaped or reinforced your desire to pursue a research career. I recommend talking about something that either shows intellectual curiosity, ownership of a project, or a deep understanding of the scientific process. Personally, I talked about how none of the equipment worked in one of my labs for multiple months and how I troubleshooted problems and got the lab up and running again. I reflected on how science is often not a linear process and how my resilience and passion for research helped me stay motivated during frustrating times. This experience showed that I really do love research (despite setbacks), and I know what I’m getting myself into.

Diversity Essay

Just be yourself and be honest! I wrote about coming from a very traditional upbringing, overcoming cultural expectations, and my efforts to reach out and empower women in similar situations.

My Final Thoughts

If you have significant research experience and are committed to a research career, please apply to this scholarship! You do NOT need to have lots of posters, presentations, or publications (although it does help). You DO need to show a commitment/passion for research, have great relationships with your mentors, and write your application well.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, so you might as well apply even if you aren’t very confident you will get it. If you don’t win it, I promise that writing about your research and career goals is really amazing practice for grad school applications. Applying to grad school will be a breeze after completing this beast of an application.

Please reach out to me if you have any questions via Twitter.

Anna Everett earned her B.S. in Neuroscience in 2022. She is a researcher, mental health educator, and advocate for women and other marginalized groups. She writes about life, productivity, the brain, human behavior, & health.